One Doctor Short
by ProperDaveXD001
Summary: Three Doctor's emerged from the time war, but why did The Moment only contact two of them?


Author; Just a little thing I came up with late last year. Since Day of The Doctor won the Radio Times Audience Award recently, thought I'd see what you guys thought. If anyone's wondering, it fits in just after the 13 Doctors scene. Besides, Christopher Eccleston deserves some credit for making this all possible, so I call this a tribute to him as well.

I don't own Doctor Who, I'm just playing with the BBC's toys while they're out, I'll put them back later.

**oooo**

As the three TARDISes appeared in the National Gallery, Clara shook her head. The Doctor had always made crossing his own time-line sound so dangerous, as if the universe would explode from sheer concentrated brilliance if more than one of him was in the same room.

Yet here he was, all three of him, coming to tea after undoing the event of his life that he fundamentally regretted, even to the point of-

Something was wrong.

It didn't register until the Doctor, the one she knew best, had disembarked from _his_ TARDIS, smiling a smile that seemed to stretch beyond the mere confines of his face, that something was ever so slightly amiss.

As the other Doctor, she was going to have to do something about this problem of identification, stepped out of _his_ TARDIS, more of a bounce to his converse shoes than had previously been the case, the feeling intensified.

When the last Doctor, the War Doctor, stuck his head out of _his_ TARDIS and frowned, the same realisation dawned on all four of them simultaneously.

"Did one of you leave the Handbrake off?" she asked, as the sound of a TARDIS engine, not only failed to fade away, but steadily grew stronger.

The three Doctors turned, looking past the neat line of their own TARDISes, to where another TARDIS was materialising, positioned like a sergeant-major about to march past a line of troops, the door pointing away from them, towards the gallery entrance. The boom of its landing fully echoing in the silence that followed.

The door swung open, and there was the sound of unseen activity around the far side.

Then a man with short black hair and a leather jacket stuck his head round the side. Initially directing a mildly confused look up at the TARDIS windows, he caught sight of Clara and her Doctor.

"Hello." he said, "Sorry, hope I'm not interrupting anything here." His manner suggested he had seven different things on his mind.

He shook his head at the machine and moved out into the open. "By the way, I'm the Doctor..." He caught sight of the the other Doctor and the three TARDISes.

"Oh..."

"Are you indeed?" said the War Doctor, folding his arms.

"Oh!" said the newcomer, suddenly becoming aware of him, and clearly not prepared to face down this aspect of himself right now.

"Can't say as I'm surprised." The Doctor whispered in Clara's ear, smiling.

"Sorry, lost in time thing," Clara reminded him, "wasn't always clear which one came where...?"

The Doctor's smile widened. "Between those two." he said, pointing to the other two Doctors she had met today. "'scuse me..." he crossed the room towards where the other three were gathering.

"You know me." the War Doctor asked, circling the newcomer. It wasn't a question.

"Sadly yes." the newcomer replied, staring him down. His tone was polite, even if it was throwing rocks across the gap between that and rude.

"Lets not argue amongst ourself here." The other Doctor pleaded. "After everything we've done today."

"Yeah, everything we've done." the newcomer replied, not taking his eyes off the War Doctor. "How about we start with this one?"

"Just calm down a minute and let your memories synchronise with this time line." Clara's Doctor insisted. The newcomer blinked, and then clutched his head.

"Ow, Ow Ow Ow Ow! Oh yeah thanks! _Just _what I needed!" he said.

"Oh grow up will you!" The War Doctor groaned. "Bloody Drama Queen..."

"Yeah? Well you try having your memories switch round in your head just after looking into the time vortex!"

"And why on earth would you do something as stupid as that?"

At this, Clara's Doctor gave up trying to adjudicate, and urgently grabbed the other Doctor's sleeve as he stared with glazed eyes at the latest TARDIS to arrive, leaving the younger two to slag it out.

"No." he said simply.

"Why?" came the tense answer.

"She's met you once, but she doesn't know you yet. Don't do that to yourself!"

"Right that's it!"

Clara's ringing declaration turned all four heads. She pointed at each of them in turn.

"Matthew, Mark, Luke, John." she said, "Just so we're clear!"

"Matthew?!" spluttered her Doctor. "Do I look like a Matthew to you?!"

Clara shrugged, pleased that the idea of giving them a common enemy seemed to have worked.

"Matthew?! I mean why can't he..." he indicated the other Doctor vaguely. "Well, okay, _he's_ hardly gospel himself, but still..."

"Mark will do." The other Doctor sighed, "It could be worse..."

"Yeah," snorted the newcomer, "She might have gone with Kirk, Spock, Picard and Sisko! Honestly, how many Luke's have you known?"

"John", the War Doctor shook his head, despairingly.

"Three or four actually," retorted Clara, "all of them from the north!"

"Lots of planets have a north." came a reply that sounded like deeply ingrained habit.

"Cyclopean Prime doesn't." the "Mark" Doctor replied, unable to suppress a smile.

"I said lots, not all."

"Sorry, couldn't resist."

"If you're my future too, why didn't The Moment contact you then?" The War Doctor asked, getting impatient.

"Maybe she did," was the reply, "Maybe I didn't want to come."

"Then why turn up now?" "Matthew" asked, in tones that suspected he already knew the answer.

"Maybe I changed my mind..."

"Maybe you don't know at all, do you." the War Doctor put in. This wasn't a question either.

"Not a clue." he admitted, grumpily.

"I can guess." the "Matthew" Doctor smiled.

"He's here _because _The Moment didn't contact him." the "Mark" Doctor put in.

"Make sense!" Said the War Doctor.

"Yeah, what he said." the Newcomer added, "Can't believe I just said that..."

"All that Bad Wolf wibbly-wobbly timey-wimey stuff, got in the way a bit for start." Suggested the "Matthew" Doctor.

"What's that meant to mean?"

"Yes, exactly what I said..." the War Doctor muttered.

"Which neatly highlights the other problem." he went on, slightly less cordially, "You two are too much alike. Grown up and oh so mature. All so serious, trying to be a warrior because you don't know how to be anything else."

"That's harsh..." Clara put in.

"Hey come on now!" the newcomer retorted, "Gallifrey burnt! I watched it happen! I _made_ it happen!... Or thought I had... And I thought it was the right thing to do... Well never mind! After everything I... _he_ did in The Time War, did you honestly expect one of you to prance out of it all with your converses and dicky-bows as if nothing had happened?!"

"If I can _attempt _to translate," the War Doctor put in, with an air of sudden realisation, "That's the point they're trying to make."

"Y'h what?"

"You weren't perfect." The "Mark" Doctor explained, "Because you didn't need to be."

"After everything I'd done, or thought I'd done," continued the "Matthew" Doctor, "I didn't want to survive The Time War."

"You were the Doctor that did."

"You were the man who re-invented the Doctor."

"You were the Doctor that got on with his life, and didn't let the past stop him doing the right thing."

"You were ..." "Matthew" paused, adjectives failing him.

"Fantastic?" "Mark" put in.

"Ah, yeah. That works._ Fan_-tastic!"

The "Luke" Doctor blinked.

"And call me crazy," The "Mark" Doctor smiled, "but I don't think The Moment picked Rose Tyler to use as an interface by random chance..." His gaze fixed on the fourth TARDIS again.

"You never know how..." Clara began, as if she was trying out a phrase she barely remembered.

"...but I _always_ know, _who_." her Doctor finished.

"And this old lady here," the War Doctor put in, knocking his knuckles on the nearest version of the TARDIS affectionately. "Always knows where I_ need_ to be."

All four TARDIS lights lit up, and they gave a single unanimous wheeze of accent.

"Can't argue with that..." The leather jacketed Doctor said at last, his face finally relaxing into a smile. He leant back against his TARDIS and looked up at it. "Bringing me all the way here to stoke my ego and make sure I'm not forgotten. _You're_ fantastic, old girl."

"Getting senile in her old age if she thinks that's a possibility..." the War Doctor muttered, moving over to the tea tray that had been waiting patiently on the table all this time. "And maybe I am too..."

The "Luke" Doctor glanced at the back of his hand, then abruptly sprang into action.

"Whoops! Hate to leave you but I've got one companion unconscious, another who doesn't know he's immortal yet, a space station full of Dalek dust behind me and... something just as important on the boil..."

He stuck his head round from the TARDIS door, looking at the four once again, and with a last small smile, he departed.

"Just as well I didn't offer him some tea then..." Clara managed at last, as the additional TARDIS vanished slowly.

"He doesn't need it." her Doctor replied.

"Well, not yet anyway..." the other Doctor added, cryptically.

"You have no idea how relieved I am that you two didn't just stride out of the time war." The War Doctor said, pouring the tea. The other two doctors looked at each other.

"So am I, if I'm honest..."

"Yeah, me too..."

Clara shook her head in wonderment, as all eyes were drawn to the painting of Arcadia, and all present lapsed into a companionable silence as they sipped their tea.

**oooo**

Author; I'm sure you all guessed, but just for clarity. Matthew= Matt Smith, Mark= David Tennant, Luke= Christopher Eccleston, John= John Hurt.


End file.
